The season debut for Dylan McIlrath started rather well on Tuesday night at the Garden, ringing a shot off the crossbar on his first shift just 1:40 into the game.

But during a contest that was riddled with penalties, coach Alain Vigneault only got the 6-foot-5 defenseman on the ice for 12:20, and an evaluation was hard to come by after the Rangers fell to the Jets, 4-1, snapping their season-opening three-game winning streak.

“He didn’t play a lot of minutes because of the specialty teams,” Vigneault said. “For the most part, he played all right.”

There was another evaluation from Marc Staal, who has seen how hard McIlrath has worked this preseason to give himself a chance to stick around.

“The first [game], with the nerves and excitement, he put a ton of work into getting that opportunity, and it was good to see him out there,” Staal said. “Played well, played solid, and I was really happy for him.”

After being a healthy scratch for the first three games, McIlrath replaced 39-year-old veteran Dan Boyle in the lineup. Boyle has struggled to start the year, just as he did for most of his past regular season, his first on a two-year, $9 million free-agent deal he signed that includes a no-move clause.

“He hasn’t been as good as I’d say last year in the playoffs,” Vigneault said of Boyle. “But today had more to do with seeing Dylan than how Dan had played so far.”

Vigneault finally gave Kevin Klein some time on the power play, with the right-handed defenseman with the big shot getting 3:19 on the man-advantage that promptly went 0-for-5. Klein has been here since coming over in a trade during the 2013-14 season, but got just 6:27 of total power-play time in 65 games last year.

As for what took so long to get him on the power play, Vigneault made a joke.

“I’m not the smartest guy in the world,” the coach said before the game. “I thought last year, he was playing real well, and he got some important production for us. Didn’t see that aspect on the power play. I don’t know, maybe I smartened up. I can’t tell you. But I tried it a little bit [this preseason], and we’re going to give it a try.”

Forward Emerson Etem is the only player on the NHL roster not to have played a game yet, but Vigneault is trying to figure a place for him on the upcoming schedule.

“I’m on a game-to-game basis,” Vigneault said, with the Rangers set to practice Wednesday before heading up to Montreal for Thursday’s game against the Canadiens. After that, they’ll play six of the next seven games at the Garden — the road game being in Philadelphia on Oct. 24 — starting Sunday afternoon against the Devils.

Tanner Glass remained in the lineup for the second straight game as the left wing on the fourth line with Dominic Moore in the middle and Jarret Stoll on the right. Jesper Fast joined Etem as the healthy scratches up front.